Freestyle Scratchbuilt Bench Build A.K.A. The 8 Hour Challenge

[dieseldog49]

Hey guys, so I snagged a bunch of stuff at the Dangerden Fire Sale (Sad to see them go :sad-smile ) and I was jazzed with all of these parts headed my way and I was in the "modding" mood. However I am waiting on parts for my Bombproof Builders Desk and my Wall PC build. So knowing I needed a new benching station (traded away my Dimas) I got a crazy idea, build a bench from scratch and only give myself 8 hours to do it! Not only that but I decided I had to use free and found parts as much as possible and I had to make it up as I went along. No sketches, plans or CAD layouts. But wait theres more! I also decided I could not make any measurements, I would have to find templates or eyeball it, the only thing I could use was a strait edge, everything else would be improvised or found objects.

Now why would I put all of these totally unnecessary "limits" on myself? Well several reasons

1. If it isn't hard it's not worth doing. I live for challenge and its one of the main reason I build PC's.

2. To shake things up! I currently have my next 5 Desk/Case/Scratch builds planned out extensively (which by the way should end up being about 2 years worth of builds :thumb: ) But I can only take those on one at a time and between work, cashflow and life there can be stretches where I dont even get to work on them. By playing playing by an entirely different set of rules I force myself to think and create in entirely new ways and explore the dynamics of my creative proccess.

3. Success Teaches us nothing, We only learn from failure. I knew going into this build with these rules I was going to screw things up, but thats the beauty of this build is that every mistake I made i had to adjust to and improve upon. Even this far in I have already come up with a ton of better ways to work with my builds and perfected some of my techniques along the way.


DISCLAIMER: This is a build for the fun of it. It in no way reflects my standards for regular case modding or scratchbuilding I am just having a good time and taking the attitude of as long as it fits we're good.


Ok so lets get into this build, the platform I am going to be using is a piece of scrap plywood from my desk build. I took a broken Asus Z68 Deluxe mobo and used it as my template for my standoffs. I then drilled the holes and threaded my standoffs in very very carefully :weirdsmil

First 4 in

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_155108.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_155113.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_155119.jpg


Pretty happy with how it lined up

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_155135.jpg

Then the Rest, not perfect but close enough (30 minutes in)

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_160205.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_160314.jpg

But dont think I have forgotten the mATX boards!

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_161036.jpg

Bah one standoff short

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_161039.jpg


Now we need to mark out some cable management holes

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_161953.jpg


And its off to the Sawhorses!

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_164810.jpg

First one was pretty rough

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_164813.jpg


But with the second one I had gotten it pretty close to figured out

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_165924.jpg

Third one was as close to perfect as I think I can get freestyling it

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_170132.jpg

Now to the first leg, using 2x6 scraps from closing in my carport, didn't even cut them to fit this. (70 minutes in)

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_171313.jpg


Pre-drilled then screwed in the leg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_172130.jpg

But then inspiration hits (I blame the Jawas, Utini!)

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_172348.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_172646.jpg

Beer decided to explode from vibration

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_173320.jpg

Next up we have the 360mm rad cutout (thats right I am going for the gold here) (110 Minutes in)

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_173547.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_174552.jpg

Rough left side cut

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_180024.jpg

Cleanin up

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_180027.jpg

Side Cut for the right

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_180715.jpg

Cleaned up a bit

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_180724.jpg


Figuring out where I need to drill my mounting holes

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_181147.jpg


Test fitting

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_182625.jpg


Where I am at 2 and a half hours of work

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_184932.jpg
http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/Freestyle%20Bench%20Build/IMG_20121101_190226.jpg



Next steps

PSU Mount
HDD mounts
PCIE Bracket
Router the Edges
fix some of the wood imperfections
Power and Reset Switches
USB ports
a Coat of High Gloss paint.

[billygoat333]

Looks like a good start!

[Airbozo]

Nice!

Too bad I have to report you for alcohol abuse...

[Beta-brain]

Great fun, love the idea and drinking and jigging adds to the risk element :D
I've spent way more than eight hours just filing parts on my present build :rolleyes:
+rep

[dieseldog49]

Ok guys, here is part 2 of the bench build and the next 2.5 hours leaving me 3 hours to finish it. I did in the meantime get to put the bench into service early as I needed to test 32gb of ram but I did not want to take my main system down running ramchecks for 2 days, I am happy to say everything fit perfectly.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121202_161205-1.jpg

Lets get to it.

First off was sanding my joints between the 3 pieces of wood to minimize the gaps and make sure I use the least amount of wood filler possible, however I dont have any pictures of me beltsanding as I had no one around to snap a pic. Here are some pics of the results though.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121202_171246-1.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121202_171628-1.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121202_171639-1.jpg

Next up was routering the edges so splinters wouldnt be an issue, I also did this for the cable management holes. (once again no pictures of me actually doing the work cause)

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121202_175941.jpg

Not totally happy with how the edges turned out but with a couple more passes of the router and some sanding by hand they should be good to go.

After that it was on to setting up my solution for mounting the PSU. I feel I came up with the simplest and most functional solution for this design. First I needed to trace out my hole, once again I am not using any measuring tools other than a 12 inch metal ruler. Then I drill out some pilot holes for my jigsaw.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_163352.jpg

Next up is cutting out the template I have set up.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_163803.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_164112.jpg

Then to the key to my PSU setup, a Lian Li PSU extension.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_165400.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_165405.jpg

Screw that in then its time to mount my power and reset switches.

Drill out my first hole and test fit the switch

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_172237.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_172243.jpg

However the wood is thicker than the switch so I have to bore out the bottom so the mount ring can screw on. I used a router for this.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_173915.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_173926.jpg

bang out the second one and we have to great looking switches.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_174320.jpg

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_203532.jpg

Also for those wondering what the spacing is on the PSU here is a pic to show the clearance I will have for cable management at the bottom of the mobo

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_204139.jpg

I also picked up a steel powdercoated radiator grill for this build as well.

http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae123/otterinator/IMG_20121207_205352.jpg


Well I have 3 hours left for the challenge and I have to get the following things done,

Disk and hard drive mount

PCIE Support

Pump and reservoir mounts

holes for tubing

Sanding and some extra routering

Putting a stain or paint job on this bad boy


Thanks for following this build guys, I am really enjoying going back to basics with this one and having alot of fun with it. Please let me know what you think!